KILLER BE KILLED has aligned with Nuclear Blast Entertainment to release the group’s debut record in 2014. The mystique-fogged collection is the result of writing sessions, creative and philosophical conversations and an eventual studio lockdown in Los Angeles. All of this has been heretofore hidden from the public, save for interview tidbits that relentlessly drove the heavy music community’s anticipation to a fever pitch.

KILLER BE KILLED is comprised of guitarists Max Cavalera and Greg Puciato, bassist Troy Sanders – all of whom share vocal duties – together with drummer David Elitch. The album was produced/mixed by Josh Wilbur (LAMB OF GOD, GOJIRA, STEVE EARLE).

“It’s a bit of SABBATH-y doom, a bit of thrash, a bit of hardcore and punk,” Puciato explains, searching for the right words to describe something defiantly unique.

“This is a very special project. It’s a one of a kind thing, with a lot of potential,” asserts Cavalera. “The album is a mix of heavy, fast and melodic songs.”

Featuring lead vocal contributions and lyrics from Puciato, Cavalera and Sanders, the aggressive assemblage of songs run the gamut from crowd-inciting brutality and jagged basement show style carnage to melodic, off-kilter hooks. Sanders jokingly described the band as “a perfect blend of a legend, a freak, a beast and a wookie.”

It’s all delivered through a prism of metal history conjuring the raw aggression of SEPULTURA’s earliest rumblings, together with the progressively esoteric shamanistic approach ofMASTODON and just a hint of the dissonance of THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN. It’s a set of songs with more traditional structure than most of them are known to perform, with a drum performance from a master of precision, power and groove.

“I love the idea of Greg, Troy and I singing together, with David Elitch’s amazing drumming,” says Cavalera. “Being a part of this is something quite different for me.”

“There would be no point in doing this if it sounded the same as our other bands,” notes Puciato. “Of any of our bands, it sounds the furthest away from mine, mainly becauseDILLINGER is [guitarist/founder] Ben [Weinman]’s expression, musically.”

MetalSucks placed Puciato at #1 on their list of the Top 25 Modern Metal Frontmen, but he also expresses himself through the dark electro-pop of THE BLACK QUEEN, together with NINE INCH NAILS touring guitarist Josh Eustis of TELEFON TEL AVIV and Maynard James Keenan’s PUSCIFER. Puciato made a guest appearance in 2012 with MIXHELL, the DJ project of Max’s brother, SEPULTURA co-founder Iggor Cavalera.

Cavalera is no stranger to collaborations, of course, having invited multiple guests onto SEPULTURA’s genre-defining Roots and SOULFLY’s gold-selling debut album in 1998. One such SOULFLY guest, Chino Moreno, has often joined Puciato onstage with both THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN and DEFTONES. Max was one-half of the incendiary NAILBOMB, together with English record producer and FUDGE TUNNEL mastermind Alex Newport. The pair released one studio album in 1993 and performed a blistering set at the Dynamo Festival in 1995.

“We did the song on SOULFLY’s Omen and then we started talking about doing an entire album together, the way he had with Alex Newport,” Puciato explains. “We eventually got together with some riffs we both had and wrote a bunch more material in a 72-hour blast out in the desert. We left with about 15 demos we made using the same drum machine and four track Max used working on Chaos A.D.”

Cognizant of the reputation both of them have cultivated after working with some of the world’s best drummers, Puciato called upon David Elitch, who had toured internationally with the mind-bendingly psychedelic group THE MARS VOLTA. His expertise in everything from jazz to metal has led to live and studio collaborations with a diverse range of major artists including Justin Timberlake, French electronic wizards M83 and Norwegian singer-songwriter Susanne Sundfør.

KILLER BE KILLED has come together even as their main projects hit a collective stride: Max just released his ninth studio album with SOULFLY, Savages, to many of the strongest reviews of his legendary career. THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN’s One Of Us Is The Killer debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Hard Rock Album chart earlier this year. MASTODON’s most recent album, The Hunter, was Album Of The Year in Kerrang!, Metal Hammer, Rock Sound, Classic Rock, Terrorizer and Total Guitar in 2011.

MASTODON and THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN have toured together many times. During one such tour in the U.S., in late 2011, Puciato was telling Sanders about the new project. Before too long, Sanders and Cavalera were meeting at a festival in South America for the first time: “Hey, I’m Troy. And I think we’re in a band together.”

The electric chemistry was apparent the first time they all assembled. “Having met, created and recorded an album together, this experience has easily exceeded my initial expectations,” says Sanders. “The collective energy and mutual respect for one another eased the entire process and has been very therapeutic for me.”

KILLER BE KILLED is the latest signing for Nuclear Blast Entertainment, the joint venture between Nuclear Blast Records founder Markus Staiger and massively influential ex-Roadrunner Records Senior VP of A&R Monte Conner, who has worked with Max Cavalera on 18 records, starting with 1989’s Beneath The Remains.

According to Blabbermouth.net, The project featuring Max Cavalera (SOULFLY, ex-SEPULTURA), THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN frontman Greg Puciato, Dave Elitch (ex-THE MARS VOLTA) and Troy Sanders (MASTODON) has finally decided on a name: KILLER BE KILLED. The group recently inked a deal with Nuclear Blast for the release of its debut album, tentatively due in mid-2014. The CD is being recorded at Fortress Studio in Los Angeles, California with producer Josh Wilbur (LAMB OF GOD, GOJIRA).

Talking to U.K.’s Terrorizer magazine, Max said about the new project: “Greg approached me kinda like how Alex [Newport; FUDGE TUNNEL] approached me to do NAILBOMB in that he was really, really trying to get me to do this project. I told him already I was pretty busy doing SOULFLY and CAVALERA CONSPIRACY [and] I was not really looking for an extra thing, but he was pretty insistent and then I just gave up and was, like, ‘Let’s fucking do this!’

“It started with just me and Greg and then we got Dave Elitch — he’s an amazing drummer — and then Greg knew Troy and we asked him to be the bassist so it kind of became a supergroup all of a sudden. We jammed a couple of times and the last jam we did it sounded killer; the songs are really powerful real heavy. It’s hard to describe but I think the coolest thing about this project is that all three of us are going to sing on every song.”

Earlier this year, Puciato told Noisecreep about how the project started: “We were at a DEFTONES show in L.A. at the Palladium and we were talking backstage about old thrash metal, punk and hardcore and we found ourselves referencing many of the same things and we were like, ‘Fuck, man, we should make a record together and do it as a one-off like NAILBOMB.’ A month later, I talked to Max again and he said we should actually do that.

“No one in metal makes collaborative records like people in jazz and hip-hop do. It doesn’t have to be like a band that you’re launching from the ground that you go on tour with. There is something to be said for collaboration and throwing yourself out there and learning something new from working with different people. Dave was a buddy of mine already and he’s a phenomenal drummer. He was the first person I thought of to play drums.

“We [DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN] spent a lot of time touring with MASTODON and Troy seemed like a really obvious fit. We had a really easy time writing. We can’t release it right behind the DILLINGER record and we also have to figure out when the MASTODON record is coming out and the same for whatever Max is doing next. It’s going to come out. It’s just going to be a matter of logistics as to when.”

In a brand new interview with ARTISTdirect.com editor-in-chief Rick Florino, singer and bassist Troy Sanders of Atlanta progressive metallers MASTODON spoke about the progress of the songwriting sessions for the band’s follow-up to 2011’s “The Hunter”, tentatively due in early 2014.

Asked if the new material picks up where “The Hunter” left off or if it is a new avenue altogether, Sanders said: “To a degree, I’m going to say it’s picking up where we left off. It’s kind of an open game or a clean slate. Every single day I go to band practice, I feel like I’m going to a chef’s table for a food tasting because there’s an element of the unknown. I’m fascinated with that. Either Chef Brent or Chef Bill will present a tasty riff dish of the day and we all lock in and go for it. Nothing that is out of the box will be turned away.”

He continued: “We’re doing this for ourselves and by ourselves. We’re creating delicious sandwiches every day at band practice. [laughs]

“Yesterday Chef Brent brought down some tasty turkey, and it was delicious. Brann decides what kind of bread is going to sandwich it. I’m just trying to create an intriguing mayonnaise or some kind of glue to hold this sandwich together. Who knows that’s going to happen today? We just don’t know.

“Per usual, in the writing process, I’m completely absorbed in MASTODON material. I’m a late bloomer, and it takes me a while to grasp a lot of things in life, and MASTODON material is one of them. I’ll listen to a demo of a particular song over and over until I can possibly find an interesting vocal melody line or lyrics that’ll fit a certain part. I immerse myself one-hundred percent in our riff writing. I’m also enjoying my home time as we’re about to leave for the entire summer. I’m trying to find a healthy balance of home and tour life.”

Regarding what’s next for MASTODON, Sanders said: “We’ve got the skeletons of enough songs for an entire album. We’re thinking of vocal ideas and putting together as much rough demos as we can before we go overseas so we can listen to everything over the summer. Then, when we return from the tour, we’ll know what we want to keep, delete, and add.”

Onslaught Radio conducted an interview with bassist/vocalist Troy Sanders of Atlanta progressive metallers MASTODON earlier today (Saturday, August 25) at the Reading Festival at Little John’s Farm in Reading, England. You can now watch the chat below.

On the band’s ever-evolving sound:

Troy: “The four of us in the band, we always embrace change and we never wanna write and record the same album twice. So we want each album to be a different and fresh chapter in the MASTODON catalog. That’s our intention — to write and record a new-sounding album every time.”

On MASTODON‘s plans for a new studio album:

Troy: “The future is very unknown, I think. After these two festivals — the Reading and Leeds — we’ll take some time off and start working on new ideas. And I’m as excited as anyone else on this planet to see where we’ll take it musically. I have no idea.”

On whether there is pressure on MASTODON to write music that will please fans and critics:

Troy: “We never really tried to cater any riff, any song, any sound to please any [particular group] of fans, any type of journalists, any critics or anything outside of the four of us. Once the four of us leave our practice space after writing a song, or even a riff, or even one line of lyrics, or something, if the four of us agree on it and are proud of it and are happy with it, then that’s all that really matters. Because we need to be happy with it ourselves, ’cause we’re going to be married to this music for life. And we really just write the songs, and we do everything to ultimately please ourselves, and if it carries over to anyone else around the world and they like it, then that’s just a wonderful dessert at the end of a giant, delicious buffet.”